Obama Gives Putin Historic Death Stare At The G20 Summit

Via CNBC’s Eamon Javers, this is President Barack Obama giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a significantly intense death stare upon their meeting at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Obama-Putin interactions have been far and away the most anticipated of the summit, amid a recent thaw in U.S.-Russian relations. The two leaders have clashed over NSA leak source Edward Snowden and, most recently and prominently, over the situation in Syria.

In August, the White House canceled a planned one-on-one meeting between the two leaders before the summit as the Snowden controversy was still bubbling.

In a rare interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Putin warned Obama against taking unilateral military action in Syria. He also didn’t rule out participating in a U.N. resolution on punitive military strikes if it is proven that Syria used chemical weapons on its own people.

But Putin has denounced a possible U.S.-led strike on Syria as a violation of international law, and he has not bought into U.S. proof that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered the chemical-weapons attack, which the U.S. says killed 1,429 people and more than 426 children. Putin said it is “illogical” for Assad to have used chemical weapons on his own people.

The White House said on Thursday that Obama and Putin were still not scheduled to have any one-on-one meetings during the summit, but that it was likely they would end up having side conversations.

“It’s always the case at these summits that leaders end up sitting next to each other — they end up having side conversations,” Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday.

“So I certainly anticipate the President will have interactions with President Putin even as we don’t have a formal meeting scheduled.”